This invention relates to an apparatus for transporting coiler cans to and from the input side of a sliver-consuming fiber processing machine, for example, a drafting frame. The apparatus has a mechanism for transferring full coiler cans from a standby position to a working position and for transferring the emptied cans from the working position to a removal position. In the working position the coiler cans are arranged at least in one row and sliver is guided from the coiler cans to the fiber processing machine.
As disclosed in Swiss Patent No. 389,461, in a drafting frame which has an intake table, the cans may be transferred from one position to the other by a transversal transporting device which moves simultaneously a plurality of coiler cans from one position to the other. Further, a longitudinal conveying device is provided which shifts the cans along the longitudinal axis of the intake table. Such an apparatus, however, is structurally complex and has the further disadvantage that a doubling of the slivers is fixed by the sequence in which the cans are shifted into place. This is a drawback because such a sequence has to be known and must be observed.